The present invention relates to electronic gaming devices and, more specifically, to an electronic-slot-machine-type gaming device using plural video screens to produce video outputs simulating the revolution of symbol-bearing reels in a mechanical slot machine.
As is known, manual slot machines provide a display produced by the motions of sequences of figures contained on the peripheries of rotatable mechanical reels. The reels are simultaneously set in motion when a coin is placed in the slot machine and a gaming attempt initiated by pulling a lever or pressing a switch. The outcome of the gaming attempt is determined by the combination of figure produced in a display area when the rotating reels are randomly stopped.
A great many slot machines using such reels employ electronic means to initiate and randomly stop the rotations of the reels. Other electronic slot machines use plural respective optical matrices to display gaming symbols which are randomly produced in response to a gaming attempt.
However, presently there are no electronic slot machines incorporating electronic video displays to produce outputs that simulate the action of randomly-stopped rotating image reels.
Therefore it is an object of the present invention to provide an electronic gaming device incorporating a plurality of electronic video displays to simulate the operation of randomly-stopped rotating image reels in mechanical slot machines.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide an electronic gaming device having video displays which are simultaneously activated to produce visual outputs simulating rotating symbol reels by the provision of symbol signals obtained from a single addressable symbol storage space.
A further object of the present invention is to provide, in such a gaming device and for each display, a symbol reel circuit that automatically obtains stored symbol signals effective for displaying a rotating sequence of gaming symbols.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a gaming apparatus in which a single timing and synchronization circuit orchestrates the operations of plural symbol reel circuits and plural video displays to simulate the randomly-stopped rotating of plural mechanical symbol reels.